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Monday, June 28, 2010

Juggling Sharp Pointy Diabetes Things

Heading to Orlando this week for the 2nd Roche Social Media Summit, I thought it was a perfect time to bring in some guest-bloggers. Please welcome first Samantha from Talking Blood Glucose, who I'm also honored to guest-blog for today - we have a little U.S. & U.K. Blogging Swaperoo! Make sure to check that out, as well as the rest of her great posts from across the pond. Anyhow, I'll step aside to get ready for Orlando and let Sam take over as host of the D-Corner Booth today. Enjoy!

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I’ve never been any good at juggling, be it with colourful balls or general life things. And just recently the juggling seems to be getting more and more intense both real life wise and diabetes wise. There comes a time in your life when things get a bit manic. You know; finishing university, moving into your own home, finding a new job, losing said job, finding a new job (which is really epic!) and planning to move on to bigger and better things. But count into the equation diabetes and you’ve got a whole new ball game, and sometimes it becomes like juggling with really, really sharp knives.

The equation may go something like this: Life + Work + Play / Blood Sugars x Possible Illness – Broken Pancreas = Life of a person with diabetes.

Ok, ok I know I’m rubbish at coming up with anything mathematical (pretty funny seeing as how I work for a company that deals with numbers every day!) but you get my point. And what I’m trying to get at is that living life with diabetes can be a juggling act at the best of times, and sometimes the diabetes fairy likes to throw a ticking time bomb into the mix as well.

Take for instance myself, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on with general life things right now. You know there’s the general day to day stuff like eating and drinking and sleeping, chilling out, playing a video game, cooking dinner and making sure the other half is eating properly. This is mixed in with a brand spanking new job, which is proving to be very challenging but incredibly rewarding at the same time. The two of us are currently looking to rent a new Flat in the city so we can move out in a couple of months, and at the same time we’re saving all our hard earned pennies and putting them in a little glass jar for the future. Ok, so maybe a bank account shaped jar rather than a glass one, but you get my drift. But every single day, there’s a little something extra thrown into the mix which makes this normal life juggling act a tad more difficult. It’s obvious from the fact I’m writing this that I have Type 1 diabetes, and if you’ve ever read my blog you’ll know that I suffer terribly from daily hypos and hypo unawareness – puts an interesting slant on the day let me tell you. Because of this, I have to be more on top of my blood sugars than I used to be, and people at work have to be aware of what’s going on with me. And then of course there’s the usual juggling of dealing with injections and dealing with people at work staring, being generally d-policeish, keeping on top of it all, carb counting in odd situations. You name it, I’ve probably done it at work. Give it a few weeks however, and there’ll be something new added into everything, something that will easier ease the juggling thing off a bit or set the juggling balls on fire…

You see, at the end of July I’m getting my hands on an Insulin Pump. It’s incredibly exciting for me as I’ve been waiting a very long time for this; less exciting for my work as I’m having to have time off during training but there we have it. But at the same time I’m wondering how I’m going to work this is into my routine, after all I’ve spent the past fourteen a half years juggling insulin injections so the change is going to be huge. I have no idea what to expect, no idea if it will actually help me but in the end, it’s really the only option left for me. How am I going to bring this into my little circle juggling act and not drop everything else? I don’t want to let other things suffer because I have a new addition to my D-Life but at the same time I’m very scared that other things will suffer.

But then again, I’m a fighter. I’ve had to be. You have to learn to fight things when you suffer from severe hypo unawareness whilst dealing with jobs that require extreme concentration (thank you archaeology for that one!) and I’m not going to let this new addition start taking over. It’s going to be tough, and maybe I will have to take something out of my juggling act for a while to make way for it. But it’s only going to be something small, maybe a couple of hours sleep a night or something. And of course, the juggling may turn into huge fiery balls from hell for a while, but hey, that’s what life with diabetes is all about isn’t it? And besides, I’m sure the juggling will get even more intense when y’know…marriage and kids come along…

1 comment:

I can relate. Hang in there. I was actually told this weekend to learn to relax. So I went to my perpetual to-do lists, trying to find what I can delete. Take some time for yourself, rest, relax. You deserve it. And by the way, you don't have to do everything right now! One step at a time.

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Mike Hoskins

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Just a guy in his 30s, who's been living with Type 1 diabetes since the age of five. A husband, friend, dog owner, journalist, writer, history lover, movie buff, Sigma Pi Man, and huge fan of Coffee & Conversation.

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I'm spending most of my time these days writing about diabetes over atDiabetesMine... I'm very proud of the diabetes journalism work there, so make sure to go check out that "diabetes newspaper with a personal twist." Meanwhile, it's fun keeping tabs on my personal life adventures here at The Corner Booth.

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